Behaviour of sandwich laminates subjected to thermal loading using higher-order zig-zag theory

In the present work, a higher-order zig-zag laminate theory is utilized to investigate the behaviour of sandwich laminates having low-density core materials subjected to thermal loading. The theory satisfies continuity condition of transverse shear stress at the layer interfaces and zero transverse shear stress at the top and bottom surfaces of the laminated plate. The assumed in-plane displacements are having cubic variations through the entire thickness of the plate. On the other hand, the variation of the transverse displacement is taken to be quadratic within the core and constant through the facesheets. In order to reduce the computation effort, an efficient C0 finite element formulation for the above sandwich plate model is adopted. Some examples of laminated composite and sandwich plate with different material properties, core thickness ratios, aspect ratios, boundary conditions, number of layers and ply orientations are considered for the analysis. The efficacy of the present model in predicting various responses is verified by comparing with three-dimensional elasticity solutions along with the available published results.